Cherisse Moe

We know that 2013 world cham­pi­on hur­dler Je­hue Gor­don can hold it down on the track.

The medals prove it. As it turns out, he’s just as in­ten­tion­al when it comes to mat­ters of the heart.

Now the 34-year-old can add an­oth­er ti­tle to his list — hus­band. He mar­ried the love of his life, Gabrielle, in an in­ti­mate, mi­cro-cer­e­mo­ny on Ju­ly 24 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford VIP Room in Port-of-Spain.

Je­hue pro­posed on her birth­day in April while the two va­ca­tioned at To­ba­go’s Jazuri Lux­u­ry Vil­las. On their fi­nal evening, he sug­gest­ed they re­lax in the jacuzzi un­der the moon­light. That was when he got down on one knee and popped the ques­tion. “Ear­li­er in the year, I had asked her if she was ready to get mar­ried, and when she said she was, I made it my mis­sion to give her the most mem­o­rable birth­day,” he told us dur­ing the cou­ple’s first in­ter­view as hus­band and wife. “In­ter­nal­ly, I was in­cred­i­bly ner­vous. I re­mem­ber won­der­ing if I was do­ing every­thing the right way, but friends had re­mind­ed me to sim­ply be my­self and let it hap­pen nat­u­ral­ly. The in­stant she said yes, every bit of ner­vous­ness dis­ap­peared.”

Gabrielle, 25, who is orig­i­nal­ly from Pa­lo Seco, ad­mits a pro­pos­al was the fur­thest thing from her mind at the time. “It was a com­plete sur­prise. He planned every­thing so thought­ful­ly, and it was one of the most touch­ing, ro­man­tic and emo­tion­al mo­ments of my life,” she re­called. “I im­me­di­ate­ly burst in­to laugh­ter with joy in my eyes. I was so over­whelmed with hap­pi­ness that I splashed the wa­ter in the jacuzzi be­fore ex­cit­ed­ly say­ing, ‘Yes!’”

How did Je­hue know she was the one?

It was the peace she brought in­to his space, her fem­i­nin­i­ty, hu­mil­i­ty and self­less na­ture. He ad­mired her con­fi­dence and “pos­i­tive au­ra,” and the way she was com­fort­able just be­ing her­self. He was re­as­sured that he didn’t need to look any fur­ther. For her, the feel­ing was mu­tu­al. Je­hue’s cheer­ful­ness, warmth and gen­uine­ly kind spir­it were un­mis­tak­able, “and of course, I thought he was very hand­some.” He checked every box for a soul­mate—re­li­a­bil­i­ty, hon­esty and hard work. “He is am­bi­tious, dis­ci­plined and some­one I can de­pend on com­plete­ly. He has al­ways made me feel safe, sup­port­ed and val­ued. I knew that he was the right per­son.”

Their wed­ding was just what they want­ed it to be.

Gabrielle wore a gown from Judy’s that had caught her eye im­me­di­ate­ly. Her favourite mem­o­ry was their grand en­trance in­to the re­cep­tion as Mr and Mrs. “It was so joy­ful and emo­tion­al, sur­round­ed by our fam­i­ly and friends,” she stat­ed. And Je­hue will nev­er for­get re­ceiv­ing his bride from her fa­ther as he watched her walk down the aisle. “It over­whelmed me be­cause I ful­ly un­der­stood the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and priv­i­lege of be­com­ing her hus­band. Say­ing ‘I do’ made it all feel re­al.” They opt­ed for a small-scale cer­e­mo­ny be­cause their biggest pri­or­i­ty was their mar­riage. Wed­ding co­or­di­na­tor Mar­lon Jef­fers of Im­pe­r­i­al Events took much of the pres­sure off their shoul­ders, al­low­ing them to tru­ly en­joy the day.

“My great­est hope is that we con­tin­ue to nur­ture a strong, last­ing and faith-filled mar­riage, rais­ing a hap­py fam­i­ly, sup­port­ing each oth­er’s dreams and achiev­ing our goals. I hope that we in­spire our fu­ture chil­dren to dream big, work hard and al­ways put God first,” said Gabrielle. Her hus­band echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, telling us, “Apart from jok­ing that I’ll now have my wife as my ex­cuse for every­thing, I want to con­tin­ue to grow in­to the best ver­sion of my­self for her and for our fam­i­ly. I am ex­cit­ed about the things we will ac­com­plish side by side.”

The two-time Olympian con­nect­ed with Gabrielle on In­sta­gram back in 2024 when he came across one of her posts about her train­ing for a 5K race “and, from my per­spec­tive as an ath­lete, I thought her run­ning tech­nique need­ed some work. She was con­vinced she was al­ready a run­ner, so I de­cid­ed to send her a mes­sage and the con­ver­sa­tion start­ed from there.”

Over time they had hon­est con­ver­sa­tions about them­selves and their ex­pec­ta­tions. “We asked each oth­er dif­fi­cult ques­tions and we quick­ly re­alised that our val­ues, goals and vi­sions aligned. Our re­la­tion­ship grew nat­u­ral­ly.”

Well-known for be­ing se­ri­ous, fo­cused and goal-dri­ven, Je­hue cred­its Gabrielle for bring­ing him bal­ance and a dif­fer­ent view­point. “She has soft­ened me in many ways and con­tin­ues to help me be­come a bet­ter man and, one day, a bet­ter fa­ther. Most im­por­tant­ly, her faith and her love for Je­sus Christ have en­cour­aged my own spir­i­tu­al growth,” he as­sert­ed. “Mar­riage rep­re­sents God’s bless­ing over our re­la­tion­ship. It pro­vides sta­bil­i­ty, com­mit­ment and ac­count­abil­i­ty, while giv­ing us a sol­id foun­da­tion to build our fu­ture to­geth­er.”